The Linguist

14 The Linguist Vol/60 No/5 2021 thelinguist.uberflip.com FEATURES during the launch event for the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages: "As Indigenous people, our languages are those of the earth, and it is those languages that we use to speak with our mother… The health of our languages is connected to the health of the earth." Indigenous leadership is essential to the success of the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages, which begins in 2022. "The bottom line of focusing on Indigenous languages is about growing new speakers of our highly endangered languages. It is not about documenting our languages as an end in itself, as part of an ongoing project of intellectual colonialism that has been little changed within the discipline of linguistics for the last two centuries. This makes linguistics perhaps the most colonial academic discipline on the face of the planet, that has failed to respond to the push for Indigenous rights, Indigenous cultures, and for Indigenous languages to be respected on their own terms," says Dr Richard A Grounds (Yuchi and Seminole), language activist and Chair of the Global Indigenous Languages Caucus. ON THE AIR Cultural Survival (CS), the US-based non-profit I work for, promotes Indigenous peoples' rights and cultures, and has supported language revitalisation work since its founding in 1972. All of our media and advocacy work concerns resourcing Indigenous language revitalisation and supporting Indigenous leadership in language efforts. While documentation is undeniably important, no dictionary, database or audio recording is as important as creating fluency. This is where community-controlled Indigenous media, especially community radio, comes in. For a language to survive it must be transmitted to the next generation. Community radio raises the prestige of a heritage language and instills pride in younger generations, confirming that their language is relevant, living and useful – not a relic of the past. Many Indigenous communities worldwide have a radio station in their language, and when the community is creative, it is relatively easy to create the infrastructure for a community-based volunteer-run station. Radio can really boost efforts such as immersion classes. These stations promote language use and halt further language decline, build awareness of language loss, inspire new language learners, and serve as a source of alternative media. CS has been working with community radio stations for nearly two decades, and our Community Media Program promotes Indigenous voices and languages through community-controlled media. We partner with Indigenous media producers who are amplifying Indigenous voices on issues that matter to their communities. Our Indigenous Community Media Fund provides grants to Indigenous radio stations to strengthen their broadcast infrastructure and training for community journalists. Through our Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowships we partner with individuals to build their capacity as broadcasters and journalists through training, community radio visits or exchanges, radio production and conference attendance. Many community radios work closely with Elders and youth in their communities, which supports intergenerational knowledge transfer. In many parts of the world, Indigenous communities face substantial obstacles in accessing radio frequencies, or they are persecuted for exercising their rights to freedom of expression. Our Indigenous Community Media Policy Advocacy helps them to change legislation, secure rights and increase access. Radio's universal and free nature, and its ability to access many remote communities, make it a key medium to reach Indigenous audiences. Indigenous-produced INFORMATION IS POWER 1. More than a dozen Zapatista (autonomous) radio stations now reach over 1,000 communities in Chiapas, Mexico 2. The 'Remando' radio programme on Voice of Confeniae Radio is run by Kíchwa and Achwar women from the Ecuadorian Amazon 3. Carolina Rain Ancan (Mapuche), a CS Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellow, films Mapuche children learning from an Elder 4. Women working on Zapatista radio receive technical training 1

• Cover